Developing and Evaluating the Effectiveness of Pictorial Health Warnings on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages to Overcome Language and Literacy Barriers
Summary
Childhood obesity is a major public health problem in the U.S. among racial and ethnic minorities, including among the growing Latino population in the U.S. One promising but understudied policy for addressing childhood obesity is requiring health warnings on the front of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) containers. Pictorial warnings in particular hold promise for overcoming language and literacy barriers. Our proposed project aims to design and evaluate pictorial health warnings on SSBs, with a long-term goal of informing policies that can improve diet, prevent obesity, and ultimately prevent type 2 diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases among Latino children. The project will address three major gaps by developing pictorial health warnings on SSBs, focusing on Latino populations, and examining the impact of pictorial health warnings on SSB purchasing behavior in a real-world retail environment. Our study population includes Latino parents of children ages 2-12.